It has been apparent for some time that the bloody
hands faction is under siege and that goes for the last crop of supreme leaders
who all effectively also condoned high levels of corruption. To give you some sense of proportion, the
support of one of these great leaders will cost $100,000,000. However, the new broom is not prepared to
play by those rules.
While this internal readjustment has been taking
place, the military supporters of the old guard have been playing war
games. Fortunately everyone else has
remained quite calm. In a couple of
years, we will wonder what all the fuss was about.
I think that an opening now exists in China for
realignment between the political sphere and the spiritual sphere. I actually think it is in the interests of
the party in particular, just as it was in the interests for the successors of
the Russian political sphere to reinvent the spiritual sphere there.
In the meantime, a culture of profound criminality
is been quietly put out to pasture with a minimum level of disclosure. We will end up with the Russian solution of
pretense and outright denial and distance.
It did not happen and it was a long time ago anyway.
High-Ranking Official
Responsible For Persecuting Falun Gong Investigated in China
A single sentence posted on Dec. 20 to a Chinese
regime website announced the investigation of a high-ranking official who has
helped carry out the persecution of the spiritual practice of Falun Gong for
the past 14 years. In doing so, the announcement for the first time
acknowledged the Party organization that has directed this persecution.
The announcement on the website of the Central
Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Chinese Communist Party listed Li
Dongsheng as holding the offices of deputy director of the Leadership Team that
handles Falun Gong, director of the 610 Office, and deputy party secretary and
deputy minister of the Public Security Department, although the announcement
used the formal titles for these offices, which do not mention the words “Falun
Gong” or the commonly used name “610 Office.”
The Leadership Team and
610 Office are extrajudicial organizations and are operated secretly, according
to a report on Li Dongsheng by the New York-based World Organization
for Investigation of the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG).
Mr. Xia Yiyang, the director of investigations for
WOIPFG, said, “No formal, official organization and website in China has ever
publicly acknowledged the existence of the agency [the Leadership Team],
although some other media and websites mention the agency on occasion.”
The announcement not only acknowledged the
existence of the Leadership Team but, by listing it first, focused attention on
it, Xia pointed out.
“Since Li Dongsheng’s career in the past 14
years is mainly related to this secret organization, it [the investigation
announcement] unveils the persecution [of Falun Gong] that has lasted 14
years,” Xia said.
Leadership Team
The Leadership Team was established in June 1999
by then-leader of the CCP Jiang Zemin.
The 610 Office, established on June 10, 1999,
was formed specifically for handling the day-to-day operations of the
Leadership Team in persecuting Falun Gong, the WOIPFG report says.
“The Leadership Team is not a legal
organization. It’s an organization of the Party, and the persecution is a
political movement raised by the Party,” Xia said.
Before setting up the Leadership Team and the
610 Office, Jiang set forth his reasons for persecuting Falun Gong (also known
as Falun Dafa), in a letter he circulated to the Politburo on the night of
April 25, 1999.
Jiang emphasized how many people were practicing
Falun Gong—at that time official state figures showed 70 million had taken up
the practice, more than the Communist Party. Practitioners say more than 100
million, or 1 in 12 Chinese, were practicing.
Jiang feared that a group not under the control
of the CCP had grown so popular, and he feared the moral teachings of Falun
Gong might prove more attractive to the Chinese people than the CCP’s atheistic
ideology.
Li Dongsheng’s Role
Li Dongsheng was there to help carry out Jiang’s
campaign from the very beginning.
He was named the deputy director of 610 Office
in charge of anti-Falun Gong propaganda. At that time, he was also the deputy
director of China Central Television (CCTV), a post he held from 1993 to 2000.
The CCTV program “Focus” that Li was in charge
of produced 102 episodes of anti-Falun Gong programs from 1999 to 2005, with 70
of the episodes produced during the 5 months’ time from July to December 1999,
the WOIPFG report says.
One of the videos aired on the CCTV claimed to
show five Falun Gong practitioners self-immolating on Tiananmen Square in
January of 2001. CCTV began playing the video almost immediately night and day,
and it profoundly affected how the Chinese people viewed Falun Gong, causing
large numbers for a time to support the Party’s campaign against the practice.
After media outside
China had a chance to analyze the video, it was deemed a fraud. The
award-winning documentary “False Fire” went through the video frame by frame showing
problems with it and also cited criticisms of it published in the Washington
Post, National Review, and other media outlets.
In 2009, Li was promoted to be the director of
610 Office and also became the deputy party secretary and deputy minister in
the Public Security Department. In these positions, Li took responsibility for
driving forward the persecution of Falun Gong.
In 2010, the CCP announced a three-year campaign to
brainwash all Falun Gong practitioners in China, which was followed by a
sequel, the “Final Battle” campaign, which runs from 2013-2015.
According to the Falun Dafa Information Center,
during the persecution at any one time hundreds of thousands of Falun Gong
practitioners have been detained, suffering brainwashing, torture, and abuse.
The Center has confirmed that 3,731
practitioners have died from torture and abuse, although the actual number is
believed to be far higher. In addition, tens of thousands of practitioners are
believed to have been murdered through having their organs harvested for use in
transplantation.
Investigating Li
The announcement on Dec. 20 is by any account
big news. Li is the second Central Committee member, along with oil industry
head Jiang Jiemin, to be investigated since the 18th Party Congress in November
2012.
Like Jiang Jiemin, Li is closely tied to the
former domestic security czar Zhou Yongkang, who is also now under
investigation, and to the faction of former party head Jiang Zemin.
The short announcement stated that Li Dongsheng
was being investigated for “serious violations of law,” but didn’t give any
hint as to what those violations might be.
“Putting Li Dongsheng’s identity as deputy head
of the Leadership Team and director of the [610] Office in front of other
titles intimates that his serious violation of discipline is directly related
to this identity,” according to the investigator Yiyang Xia.
The announcement may also be delivering a
broader message.
“The current leadership might have second
thoughts about the persecution of Falun Gong. At least it doesn’t want to take
the responsibility for the crimes that the Jiang Zemin regime has committed,”
Xia said.
Xia said that the people involved in the
persecution are tired after 14 years, and it’s not easy to find individuals
willing to continue the persecution actively like the former CCP officials who
started it, such as Luo Gan, Zhou Yongkang, Bo Xilai, Liu Jing, and Li
Dongsheng.
“The persecution of Falun Gong needs individuals
who are ruthless and active. But it’s not easy to find people like that even in
the evil [CCP] system” Xia said. “Without anyone to take over the persecution,
it’s very difficult to keep the persecution as it was.”
The impact of Li’s fall is unsure, but the
people involved in the persecution of Falun Gong have lost another official who
would back them up. Xia said, “There is no political security any more for people
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